STEFAN sat in a leather chair in the boarding house parlor as Damon and Elena sat on the couch adjacent to him and Valentina stood nearby with her hands on the back of her hips.

Damon leaned forward in his seat and started testing the youngest brother's memories. "October 1852."

"You broke my nose trying to teach me how to throw a right hook," Stefan recalled the memory with a thoughtful look on his face.

"But not on purpose." Damon quickly defended himself and turned to Elena with a finger held up in the air. "Just to be clear." He set the record straight, earning a semi-amused laugh from her and a synchronized eye roll from the younger siblings. "How much did you pay for that hunk of junk motorcycle you ride?" He asked Stefan while smirking smugly over at him.

"That's a trick question. You bought me that motorcycle, although I'm guessing it was pretty expensive." Stefan provided the answer, flattening his lips and nodding his head slowly.

"So Tessa just gave you back your memories, no strings attached," Damon commented in confusion and furrowed his brow to match his tone.

"Well, it wasn't exactly a gift. It was a lot to take in at once, everything from blowing out the candles on my first birthday cake to... drowning in a safe." Stefan explained, his voice falling off at the end as he started to stare distantly at the floor in front of him.

"I know that feeling." Valentina frowned deeply as she instantly recognized that look. She walked across the room to stand behind him and place a soothing hand on his shoulder. "Stefan." She called out softly when she noticed his hand started to tighten around the glass of blood he had been holding.

The glass shattering to pieces under his grip snapped him back into reality and he looked around at everyone in concern.

Damon stared at the shards with wide eyes but didn't make a move toward him. "Whoa! Easy there, buddy."

Elena stood up from her seat and slowly approached the other doppelgänger. "Stefan, where did you go?"

Stefan glanced down at his palm, which had already healed from the self-inflicted wounds, and attempted to clear the air with an awkwardly placed joke. "All that and I still can't remember my own strength." He gave them a fake smile then stopped after hearing a loud thud coming from the basement downstairs. "What was that noise?"

"Uh, well that is..." Damon trailed off, trying to find a way to lie or make an excuse.

"We have a situation," Elena spoke up quickly.

"Of the doppelgänger variety," Damon added to her statement with a sarcastic smile.

"Yeah." Elena breathed out in frustration.

"Yeah. It never seems to fucking end, does it?" Valentina rhetorically questioned, her tone sharp and full of pure aggravation.

"Katherine?" Stefan asked out of habit.

"No, nope, not Katherine." Damon made one of his signature facial expressions before the three Salvatores traveled down the stairs into the cellar.

Stefan peered through the cell door window to see Amara screaming and trying to cut loose from her handcuffs. "I don't know! I don't know." She continued to repeat frantically while flailing around in fear.

"What's wrong with her?" Stefan inquired curiously without looking away from the Elena look alike.

"Oooh. Where to start..." Valentina joked lightly, folded her arms over her chest, and blew her lips together in a classic raspberry noise.

"Tessa turned her into a block of rock, left her in a box for two thousand years, probably went a little stir crazy like those deserted island guys who talk to volleyballs." Damon bluntly referenced a popular movie.

"I said I don't know!" Amara screamed.

"So, you're telling me that this girl is the only thing holding together the other side?" Stefan asked in disbelief.

"Yup. She's the anchor." Damon mused with a low sigh.

"Leave me alone." Amara snapped at an unseen force.

"As long as she's alive, the other side exists, and we can keep trying to get Bonnie from over there." Damon continued to explain while watching her through the small window on the door.

"I said I don't know!" Amara repeated once again with more aggression.

"Well, considering she's immortal, I'd say we have plenty of opportunity," Stefan remarked, feeling slightly uncomfortable about the woman unfolding in front of them.

"You'd think, except last night she stuck a hole in Silas' neck, sucked the cure right out of him, so now she's not only nuts, she's mortal, which means we have to keep her ordinary little human heart beating until we get Bonnie back." Damon elucidated with a pointed expression on his face.

Stefan turned to face his older siblings, his face scrunched up with concern and perplexity. "How would you plan to do that?"

"Silas made a pinky promise---" Damon started only to be interrupted by Valentina.

"Because he's soooooo reliable and trustworthy." She commented sarcastically.

"Shut up, Tin." Damon snapped at her then continued like she never spoke. "---that he'd do a spell to bring her back. Unfortunately, he's taking his sweet time coming back to Mystic Falls." He jeered through gritted teeth then heard a noise and turned toward Amara to see her biting into her wrists. "Ah! Amara, stop." He scolded sternly, opened the door, and rushed in to stop her. He grabbed her arm, pulled it away from her mouth, and hoisted her up off the dirt floor.

"No! No! Let me die. I want to die!" Amara cried desperately as blood dripped down her chin. She shrieked at the top of her lungs and fought against Damon's strength to no prevail.

"Let's hope love is blind or at least deaf," Damon commented snidely to the other vampires with a dramatic roll of his icy blue eyes.

"Hmmm." Valentina mused lowly.

"We need to buy some more time, protect Amara. Maybe we should move her somewhere else." Elena proposed a plan to save Amara after Damon's phone call with Silas.

Silas had asked them to kill Amara and decided not to help them bring Bonnie back from the Other Side because it would purposefully ruin Damon's relationship with Elena thus bringing Silas a sadistic sense of joy.

"Easier said than done." Valentina rejected in a dull tone of voice while she paced the floor and swung her arms in front of her.

"Silas is a witch. He's a living, breathing, GPS-tracking device. He'll track her wherever we take her." Damon responded to Elena as he sat on the couch with his arms hanging off the back of it. His tone pointed causing Valentina to jab a finger over at him in agreement.

"We can't let him anywhere near her until he brings Bonnie back." Elena sternly reminded them.

"Weren't you listening to anything?" Stefan, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, asked with annoyance lacing his voice. "He's not gonna bring her back."

"So, what, I should just give up?" Elena rhetorically asked them all then scoffed and walked toward him. "Come on, Stefan. You got your memory back. You know me probably better than anyone else. Do you really think that I'm gonna give up?"

"That's also been another one of your problems," Valentina commented harshly and threw herself down on the couch next to Damon.

"You know what? You're right. I do know you. You put your hope in all the wrong places and sometimes---" Stefan glanced over at Damon, who glared at him. "---in the wrong people." He snapped bitterly then turned back to Elena. "Silas needs to die and put us all out of our misery."

"So long as he's alive, I'm holding out hope that he can still help us," Elena argued against him, not backing down from her position in the conversation.

"Well, as someone who just spent the last three months at the bottom of a quarry because of the guy, I wouldn't hold your breath, pun intended. Silas needs to die, and I need to be the one to kill him, end of story," Stefan said in aggressive determination before spinning around on the ball of his feet and storming out of the room.

Valentina got up from her spot and followed after him until he stopped outside on the lawn. She stayed a few feet behind, observing the way he was breathing heavily and squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

"Stefan." She spoke quietly but he jerked toward her defensively with his eyes trained on her. Lifting her hands in surrender, Valentina took a few steps away and shook her head. "Hey, it's okay."

"Ah, shit." Stefan's face fell with guilt and he immediately tried to smooth over the situation. "Val. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just---"

"I get it." She interrupted so he wouldn't have to explain himself. She smiled warmly at him and lowered her hands back down to her sides.

"Yeah." He breathed out a heavy sigh then gave her a fake smile which she saw right through. "How, uh, how have you been?" He asked out of genuine curiosity, changing the subject away from him.

"I've been good." She responded with a nod and started walking toward him.

"How's the baby?" He asked curiously, pointing at her abdomen.

"The babies are good too." She stretched out the word then laughed gleefully at his stunned expression. "Yeah. It's twins. One boy, one girl. Oh! I have pictures for you from our last ultrasound. What's crazy is I'm already this big but they're only the size of carrots."

"How far along are you?" Stefan inquired teary-eyed and had to stop himself from placing his hand on her abdomen.

"I'm twenty-one weeks along. A little over half." She replied simply with a shrug of her shoulders. She noticed the sadness on his face and reached over to squeeze his arm. "Hey, it's okay. You didn't miss much."

"Still. I should've been there. I wanted to be there." He emotionally admitted, a soft sniffle rupturing through his nostrils.

"Okay. So be there for the rest of it." She suggested warmly then rested her head against his shoulder.

They stayed like that for a moment until she suddenly gasped causing him to whip around in confusion and concern. Smiling in pure happiness, she grabbed his hand and placed it on the top of her baby bump.

He furrowed his bushy eyebrows in confusion at first then lit up when he felt one of the babies gently kick at his hand. He let out a joyous and teary laugh. His heart swelled with more love than he had ever experienced before.

"Should we share this with Damon?" Stefan asked mischievously causing her to smirk back.

She wrinkled her nose up in pretend thought before raising her voice to be heard from outside. "Damon!"

The older Salvatore took a second to come into view as he walked out of the house and approached them with his hands held up. "What?"

"Shut up for a second." She said while grabbing his wrist and setting his open palm where Stefan's was a second ago.

"What are you---" Damon started to question but immediately stopped after feeling the flutters ripple underneath his touch. "No fucking way!" He reacted like a child would in a candy store and laughed ecstatically. "Man... little Damon is a kicker!"

"Goodbye." Valentina mused in annoyance, removed his hand from her body, and started toward the house again.

"Tin! Tin!" Damon yelled after her while Stefan chuckled mockingly beside him then groaned loudly when she held up a middle finger in the air.

Night fell around Mystic Falls like a heavy blanket of darkness with only a few stars to light the sky. Bonnie had been brought back to life by Qetsiyah and Silas and Amara were finally dead.

With everything set back into place, Valentina decided it was time to leave Virginia again. She was folding clothes and setting them in her luggage which was sitting wide open on her old bed.

Stefan rapped his knuckles against the door frame and strolled in without an invitation or permission. "Hey." He greeted her then noticed the suitcase and frowned in disappointment. "Do you have to go?"

"Yeah." She replied with a heavy sigh. "Nik is getting antsy and he already has so much going on, it's best not to worry him anymore. Also, I miss him. It's true what they say, Stefan. Absence makes the heart the heart grow fonder."

He nonchalantly sat down on her bed causing the mattress to dip and wrapped his arms around one of the bed posts. "Yeah but I don't want you to leave yet."

"Well, you could always visit, Stefan " She offered a solution and handed him a shirt so he could put it away for her.

"Oh, I will. You're due in November, right?" He asked for clarification then nodded when she nodded. "I'll definitely be making a trip down there in the fall."

She smiled fondly at him for a second, recalled something suddenly, and snapped her fingers. "Oh!" She mused while walking over to the desk.

He watched in confusion as she reapproached him with a long paper in her hand. However, that disappeared when she handed them to him and he realized they were the ultrasound photos. He stared down at them in awe. "So who's who?" He asked curiously, pointing between the pictures labeled Baby A and Baby B.

"A is a girl and B is a boy." She explained happily then returned to her packing, observing the way Stefan was fixated on them. "Hey, are you gonna be okay?"

"What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be fine." He quickly assured her with a wave of his hand.

"Stefan..." she trailed off, her green eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Don't lie to me, okay? Because I saw you. You're having panic attacks, dissociative episodes, moments of rage. It's--- you have PTSD. And as your sister, I can't just leave you here to deal with it on your own."

"Val, I'm fine." He said sternly and leaned over to grab her hand. "If I need your help, I know you'll be a phone call away. I'm gonna be fine. I have Damon to help me. Don't worry about me."

She studied him for a moment before relenting with another heavy sigh. "Okay. If you say so."

"I do." He said smugly earning an eye roll from her. "Now come on. I'll give you a ride to the airport."

Valentina stopped at the front door so she could say her farewells to Damon. She embraced him in a genuine hug and smiled fondly after breaking away. "Don't do anything too stupid and don't die."

"Yeah. Yeah. I love you too." Damon mused in playful aggravation. "Be safe. I know you're in good hands with them. Just... remember to accept help now and then. And hey, you're still Valentina even with those babies."

"I love you." She replied affectionately then hugged him again.

He returned the gesture as he kissed her temple a few times. "Call when you land."

"Okay." She agreed with a nod and spared him another glance before leaving the house, shutting the door behind her, and meeting Stefan at the end of the driveway.

Stefan drove them to the airport and they sat in the car for what felt like forever without making any attempt to leave. Valentina gave him a bittersweet smile and rubbed his shoulder. "I have to go, baby brother."

"I know." He agreed with a nod, reluctant to let her get out of the car. "Um..." He trailed off as he choked up with tears. "Call me all the time, okay? I promise to pick up. I also promise to visit a few times. Just let me know when would be a good time and I'll make the drive. I love you."

"I love you too." She expressed sincerely and leaned across the median of the car to wrap her arms around him. "Same applies to you. I wanna hear everything that's going on in your life. Don't push me away, please. Be smart. Be safe. Don't let Damon get you killed and don't put anyone else's life before yours, do you hear me?"

"Yeah." He agreed curtly and held her tightly with his eyes closed for a moment. "Bye, Val."

"You gotta let me go or I'll miss my flight," Valentina whispered against the quiet night air.

After a moment, he removed his arms from her, let her go, and watched sadly from the windshield as she walked into the airport.

Valentina boarded her flight without any issues. She settled into her seat, staring out of the window with a frown. While her relationship with her brothers hadn't been perfect, she still loved them with every fiber of her being and would miss them. Being back with them for only a few days made her realize how much she needed them in her life.

Almost five hours later, the plane landed on the airstrip of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. She waited for everyone to deboard, smiling kindly at a woman who let her go in front of her, then made her way to the carousel to find her luggage. She grabbed it off the belt, pulled the handle up, and walked through the terminal with it dragging behind her.

Her face shifted from a resting look into one of pure excitement when she spotted Klaus waiting at the exit for her. She waved over at him, her heart beating wildly as she fought to contain her excitement.

Instead of letting her walk over to him, the hybrid rushed over to close the distance. When she realized what he was doing, she stopped in place and wiggled her legs frantically in anticipation with her arms open wide.

He lifted her by the back of her thighs, wrapping them around his torso, and hugged her as close as possible with a hand tangling in the hair on the back of her head.

Valentina giggled happily while gripping tightly onto the back of his leather jacket.

Klaus gently set her back down flat on her feet. He reached up to cup her face in his large hands and tilted her head back slightly so he could look directly into her eyes.

She peered up at him through blurry vision as the tears involuntarily rolled softly down her cheeks, landing on his skin. "Hi, Nik."

He offered her a small, affectionate smile while rubbing the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. "Welcome home, my Valentine."

---
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-the1andonlytifftiff